The Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings are scheduled to continue their Original Six rivalry on Oct. 20 in the Windy City. Nobody knows whether that will actually happen, given the possibility of an NHL lockout when the league’s current collective bargaining agreement with the NHLPA ends on Sept. 15.

Not knowing how long they will have to wait before renewing hostilities on the ice, the Hawks and Wings took their eternal competition to Twitter on Monday, with a contest to see which club could get the most followers in the span of a week.

Patrick Kane and the Blackhawks are doing battle again with the Wings. (AP Photo)

As of 2:20 p.m. ET on Monday, the Red Wings had 198,813 followers at @DetroitRedWings to the Blackhawks’ 198,247 at @NHLBlackhawks. Both clubs said they would award prizes to fans that help their campaigns with the hash tag #WingsHawksRace.

The competition figures to bring both teams more than 200,000 Twitter followers, a number reached so far in the NHL only by the Montreal Canadiens (@CanadiensMTL), Vancouver Canucks (@VanCanucks) and Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins).

The Blackhawks do have an advantage in the race if they can convince Stanley Cup-winning goal scorer Patrick Kane to campaign on their behalf.

Kane has more than 190,000 followers on his own @88PKane account, fifth in the league behind Alex Ovechkin, Paul Bissonnette, Evgeni Malkin and Taylor Hall, according to the social media rankings at capgeek.com.

The highest-ranked Red Wings player is summer signing Jordin Tootoo (@Jtootoo@22), ranked No. 48 with just shy of 55,000 followers.